But as I say, government sources in the last few minutes saying that that is a permanent departure, we had expected that he would wait until the end of the year around the same sort of time that the Brexit transition period would end.

But he's obviously decided.

After all the fury of the last 40 hours, all the questions about how much the government is distracted by factional infighting in number 10, Mr Cummings has decided that he needs to go right away.